Whew!!! Once again Kirby knee jerk reacts to an issue that he obviously doesn’t understand. We can only assume that he’s pontificating about an article in yesterday’s paper about making Frederick a sanctuary city. What does that entail asks thee? Basically, it entails law enforcement and other governmental entities not asking about an individual’s immigration status. Kinda similar to the military’s no ask no tell policy concerning gay service members. And guess what Kirby? If you bothered to read this article all the way through, instead of just singling out Michael O’Connor’s name, you would have seen that the Frederick Police department has already codified this policy. Here’s what the good alderman had to say about the proposal to adopt this policy across all levels of city government:

“For me, it’s a statement of support for the residents of our community who work, who live, who go to school, who pay taxes … in the city,” he said. “The reality is, for people in our community who are here, regardless of their documentation, they should not have to live in fear.”

So, we aren’t just letting people come into our house uninvited? That’s not what he meant? Why is Kirby always getting things so very wrong?

In other what the what news: If you’ve driven down Route 340 recently, you’ve probably seen a huge black and yellow billboard yelling at Senator Ronald Young for being a big meanie to Governor Hogan.According to said billboard, Senator Young has gotten his legislative role oh so very wrong. Doesn’t he know that, as a legislator, he’s supposed to be against all the legislation the governor no likey? Just like Congress did when Obama was president! Well, said billboard leads you to a cray cray website that shows just who paid for said eyesore (Side note: try not to put so many words on a billboard in which drivers are speeding by people!):

These people have cutesy little names for everything! Let’s try to break all these “harmful” bills down. The Sunshine Tax, fact checked here by the Baltimore Sun, is a piece of legislation requiring energy providers to get a larger percentage of their energy from renewable sources. The potential costs to taxpayers? .48 to $1.45 a month! Makes you wonder who was lobbying to get this sidelined. Doesn’t seem like that’s going to drain the ole family coffers. The rain tax is a nickname that’s been driving your Lady Yokels crazy for a few years now. It’s called the Storm-water Management fee people! It has to do with impermeable surfaces. You know the surfaces that rain can’t penetrate? Houston has a huge flooding problem because of them. The danger in Maryland is not only flooding, but water pollution. When the water doesn’t get filtered through the soil all the mess it’s mixed with on land goes right into the water. And Governor Hogan’s repeal, wasn’t really a repeal y’all. We still need to comply with the EPA regulations. Now what about the scary sounding Road Kill bill? Well, that’s hyperbolic nonsense as well. You can read it here, but it’s basically a system for scoring transportation projects. And according to the Maryland Reporter:

To drive home the point that the new law gives Hogan carte blanche to do as he pleases, lawmakers added this concluding sentence: “[N]othing in this Act may be constructed to prohibit or prevent the funding of the capital transportation priorities in each jurisdiction.”

In other words, Hogan can fund whichever road, bridge and transit projects he wants regardless of the score it receives.

All he’s gotta do is give “a rational basis for the decision. . . in writing.”

Like, “it will make the road safer.” Or “it will reduce traffic congestion.” Or “it will help economic development.”

We are baffled as to why the Maryland Republicans are against the creation of a commission to oversee and recommend redistricting recommendations. We suppose they must have some of those famous reasons we keep hearing about.

So curious as to why the Maryland Republican Party would spend their money on a billboard and website attacking Senator Young in a non-election year. We also hear from our fans that the Maryland Repubs are running ads on WFMD attacking both Jan and Ron over the downtown hotel. But hey, who are we to tell them what to waste spend their money on? Guess they are counting on their cutesy “scare words” to get everyone worked up. Took us about fifteen minutes to refute everything on that website. We can only hope that those who read that billboard will do their due diligence…or at least read our blog.

Happy Friday y’all!!! Lots of good stuff to point out to you today, so let’s get started!

Adam Umak, proprietor of Frederick County Fact Check, had an excellent LTE in the paper this morning. Make sure you take a look at it. We cannot let Senator Hough and Delegate Afzali get away with this thinly veiled attack on our County Executive!

Speaking of our CE, in today’s Political Notes we were made aware of a Town Hall meeting next week. So, if you’ve got anything to say, get your behind over to Winchester Hall at 7 p.m. this upcoming Thursday.

Now for your end of the week comic relief. Kirby weighs in on the dueling ethics bills presented to the Maryland General Assembly this week:

You can’t wordsmith Kirby!

Let this quote sink in folks:

“Never notified any land owners and then claims she knew nothing of the plan after the excrement hit the oscillating wind chime.”

That is our new favorite Kirby quote! Man oh man, you can’t make this stuff up! Have a great weekend!

State Senator Michael Hough is in the paper with an LTE todayattacking Jan Gardner as though she is opposed to ethics reform. What a bunch of garbage. This blatant partisan attack is casting aspersions (asspersions?) at a bill crafted by (edit for clarification/correcting oversimplification) crafted by the Ethics Task Force with attentive feedback from the bipartisan League of Women Voters. That’s a good litmus test for are you being a jerk on purpose.

Hey, you know, a little birdie chirped that former Commissioner Kai Hagen asked at the Hough/Afzali Dog and Pony Townhall of Pretend Listening if he would pledge not to make this a political attack and, nope. He would not. How interesting…

Also, we were asking amongst ourselves the other day: what gives with this double bill double bill trend we are seeing lately? It occurred at the last County Council meeting. It occurred in areally bizarre fashionwith Ron Young’s bill to extend the statute of limitations for childhood sex abuse crimes. And this hot mess of ethics.

We’ve been trying to follow this riveting rezoning application discussion (from yesterday) and the cross examination process. None of us live in Urbana, so while we sympathize BIGLIG with the concerns about adequate public facilities and overdevelopment, it has been difficult to stay awake.

What we know is that 75 townhouses and 700 age restricted units and maybe an assisted living facility, too, plus some additional market place development are part of this rezoning application–and the estimated figures are that this will add 30 elementary school, 10 middle school, and 11 high school students.

To liven this up as best we can, we will tell you what observations were made by the children who were innocent bystanders during the viewing of this event.

They’re talking about bonds! We just learned about that at school! (ok, that was really during the first half, but how often do you hear a child get excited about a bond proposal?)

Wait, he doesn’t vote for the minutes. Why not?????

Look at Billy and Kirby! They are all slouched in their chairs!

Do you like her? She seems smart.

Do you like the younger lady? She seems smart, too.

What is he (Billy Shreve) playing with? Does he have yarn?

Why does that man with the sweater always have his hands on his face? Do you think he’s just really tired?

Ohmygosh! He (Billy Shreve) is such a BUTT!!!

How long do these last??????

Mark Jafari gets our award tonight for asking good questions, especially the one about having the age restricted community and the high school traffic all concentrated in the same area. Like most good questions, the answer was something like, “Well, we deal with that kind of thing at a later phase.”

First half of the meeting clocked in at just under an hour! Billy really had a lot of trouble tonight. Did his usual idocracy, abstaining on agendas and voting against minutes. He had a lot of trouble during his questioning of the finance people during the reassignment of bond talk. First, his gotcha question about Montevue/Citizens backfired. Then he misunderstood the dates of the bond repayment. Finally, he wanted an explanation on why the County Executive would have the power to buy and sell bonds. After some very good reasons, mainly boiled down to the fact that the CE can move more quickly in volatile bond markets, he capitulated and the motion was passed 7-0. It’s become more and more evident that Billy just can’t keep up!

Tony is rescinding his dueling tasting room bill…for now. He complained about how the County Executive wouldn’t tell him what she had in her bill. In fact, he had many, many words for the County Executive:

“It would be nice if the Executive would work with this council member”.

Huh, we remember a few weeks back when an email landed in the ole Yokel inbox. We were made aware that Tony was having a meeting with local winery and distillers. And guess who was not invited?! Anyone else from the county! In fact, we were told that when a county staff meeting caught wind of this “secret” meeting they were shut out! So, Tony can act the victim all he wants, but he hasn’t exactly been open with his bill either.

Billy ends this discussion by yelling that Bud could rescind the County Executive’s bill, but everyone ignores him. Which may be the best strategy.

Small business real property tax bill is passed 7-0. Not before Billy pipes up though! He just wants to let us all know that this bill should be for ALL small business owners regardless of how large they are and shouldn’t include any wage requirements. Well, we remember, from readings one and two, that these requirements were necessary because of Maryland law. Now, if we remember hearing that fact, shouldn’t Billy? I mean really. Stay tuned for our report on the Urbana public hearing.

Sprinkles looks like he means business!LOOONG agenda tonight! With this much on the the docket there’s little chance of emerging unscathed. You must really use your best judgment on which parts to follow or you are in extreme danger of sounding like Kirby does when he’s beating his dead horses all over the Facebook. Grab your agenda, click on over to Frederick’s best reality TV station, and get ready for your local government in action!

Every time Billy says YES before speaking, an annoying little habit he possesses, slam back your favorite shot. Think of this as free drink time!

All the budget adjustments, agenda and minute approvals and approval of County Executive appointments have become all so, YAWN!, boring to us. Just let your eyes glaze over a bit as Billy refuses to approve the minutes. Remember people, he’s bravely taking a stand against something nothing!

Finance hero Lori Depies is asking for the council to reauthorize some bonds. She’s always so brave and calm in having to mire through the nonsense that is Shrelauter. If they give her any grief, ask any irrelevant questions or use this as an attempt to grandstand slam back a couple of Bad Hombres. They were the ones Trump was speaking of, right?

We have four first readings of bills and what in Zeus’ daylight is this?

We appear to have dueling tasting room bills!!! Who will win the showdown, tis too early to tell. Knock back a couple of Dueling Banjos in honor of the show that will be laid before us. But hey, at least Tony is introducing some bills which is a lot more than we can say for the bookends.

Third and final reading on the Small Business Real Property Tax Credit. We’ve discussed, during readings one and two, how our friendly businessmen should be all on board with this. We predict not, since it’s their job to obstruct, not make things better. When this predictability ensues sip on your Slap In The Face. You know you want to!

Break Time! If it isn’t close to 7:00, Billy will complain and moan and nobody will care! Just smile at his childish antics and have a sip or two of your Raging Bitch.

At 7:00 we reconvene for the Urbana Rezoning application. We talked a little of this when it came up at last week’s workshop. We predict we will see lots of friends of the Yokel up at the podium this evening. This is probably going to be a long hearing, so pace yourself with your favorite bottle of wine.

Council member comments AKA Where everything goes to hell in a hand-basket! Let’s take a look into our crystal balls and see if we can make some predictions:

Kirby will dead horse beat the issue of Jessica and Jerry voting on the budget.

Kirby will say Jan’s unethical because she wasn’t on board with Hough’s unvetted, last- minute ethics bill. He’ll pull out some donations that Jan received that “proves” she’s a criminal. But hey, don’t forget what we found.

Billy wants to have a whole entire workshop on why he can’t Skype into closed meetings.

Someone will say Jan is grabbing all the land up.

M.C. and Jessica will be forced to use their time to real time fact check Shrelauter.